A long time back I had used a primitive version of my Single Malt recommendation app to determine that I’d like Ardbeg. Presently, the wife was travelling to India from abroad, and she got me a bottle. We loved it. And so I had screenshots from my app stored on my phone all the time,…
Single Malt Recommendation App
Life is too short to drink whisky you don’t like. How often have you found yourself in a duty free shop in an airport, wondering which whisky to take back home? Unless you are a pro at this already, you might want something you haven’t tried before, but don’t want to end up buying something…
Networking eatings
Given that I’m a freelancer and do several things to earn my money, and that there is no consistency in my income flow, I need to do a lot of “networking”. Essentially, this is about generally catching up with someone over an informal chat, discussing what we do, and exploring if there were any synergies…
Barista Update
The Barista at Barton Center on MG Road has suddenly become so much more bearable, as they have turned down the volume of their music to a level such that you can actually have conversation without shouting. On a related note, it seems much easier to find tables there compared to earlier (yesterday we walked…
The City Lacks Bars
Yeah you might think I’m crazy to be cribbing like this about Bangalore, supposed to be India’s pub city and all that jazz. But I stick to my statements. Yeah we might have lots of good pubs and lounges but we don’t have lots of good bars. I was on my way to dinner at…
CTR
Ok this is a post that has been delayed by about a couple of weeks. One of those things that has been in my head now for a while so writing it. So some two or three Sundays back (more likely to be two) I went to the famous CTR in Malleswaram for breakfast. For…
Orange Juice and Petrol
So I was reading this article by Ajay Shah about administered pricing for petroleum. He does an excellent (though it gets a bit technical in terms of statistics) analysis about what could go wrong if the government were to free pricing of petroleum products. He mostly argues in favour of deregulation, and that is a…
Urban living and restaurants and liquidity
Last night I had dinner at Alfanoose, a small Mediterranean joint off Broadway. I had hummus and salad with pita bread, and had also brought along a falafel sandwich which is now sitting in my fridge and is likely to get consumed today for breakfast. Excellent stuff. Absolutely brilliant. And not expensive at all –…
Cooking
I’m in the process of my weekly cooking. I’m making onion and potato sambar which should last me for about four meals – one tonight, and for three meals during the course of this week. I have been on and off the phone to my mother, as she has been giving out expert instructions from…
Fighterization of food
One of the topics that I’d introduced on my blog not so long ago was “fighterization“. The funda was basically about how professions that are inherently stud are “fighterzied” so that a larger number of people can participate in it, and a larger number of people can be served. In the original post, I had…
Weddings
I’m trying to understand the significance of attending another person’s wedding. It is very unlikely that you are going to add any significant value to the process, since the person who invited you is likely to be extremely busy with the process. Unless you know one of the main people involved in the wedding really…
Of Pepsi and Perk
Can be best described by looking at the “objects” that defined our bets at different points in time. Most of those phases seem to have faded away, but I clearly remember two of them – the Pepsi phase and the Perk phase. The Pepsi era started with their “nothing official about it” campaign during the…
Why fine dining costs so much in Bangalore
Blame the Bangarappa government of 1993, which took a decision to stop issuing more liquor licenses, a decision that still continues today.? According to themadman ?(who runs the excellent Shiok, currently temproarily closed), the only way one can start a restaurant serving liquor in Bangalore is to buy a permit from someone who is shutting…
Hotel Dwaraka
In its earlier sit-down avatar on Bull Temple Road, it was known for doling out copious quantities of chutney in buckets. No sooner had you emptied half the chutney on your plate, a waiter would materialize and pour a bucket of the stuff into your plate. The main item on the menu here was the…
Death Markets
I wrote this in a mail to the Satin group. This was in response to a mail by Amit Varma talking about priests in Haridwar who conduct the pre-ashes-dunking ceremony, and their fees, and the bargaining, and what could be a decent solution for the problem. I thought it might make sense as a standalone…
Temple food
During my recent pilgrimage, three of my four meals were at temples – two at the Horanadu temple and one at Sringeri. For the fourth meal, we took a conscious decision that a temple meal may not be suitable for an overnight bus journey on a bumpy road, so we ate at a restaurant.
SLV Banashankari 2nd Stage
Around this time last year, I was doing a series of blog posts on delivery and revenue management practices in restaurants in Bangalore. My apologies for not updating on that series for so long. This morning I had my breakfast at SLV in Banashankari 2nd stage (near the BDA complex; opposite the park next to…
Rice prices
Recently, Tyler Cowen wrote in the New York Times saying that lack of free trade in rice and growing protectionism is not a good thing from the long-term perspective. IAS Officer Gulzar Natarajan (now with the Vijayawada Municipal Corporation) took him on and elaborated as to why protectionism might be necessary. I left the following…
Coffee pricing at Chalukya
The pricing of coffee at the Samrat restaurant (part of Hotel Chalukya on Race Course Road) is interesting. This is a popular old restaurant, and being in an area full of government offices, is perennially crowded (despite its large size). It is a sit-down kind of restaurant, though you might have to share a table…
Coffee segmentation and take away and food courts
I really like the way the coffee market in India is segmented. You have a clear distinction of cafe and coffee shop. If you just want a quick tasty caffeine kick, you just go to one of the cafes (Darshini types) and for some 6-7 rupees you’ll get excellent steaming and strong filter coffee. However,…
The Barista Way
The Barista outlet outside Barton centre on M G Road seems to have come up with an excellent way in order to improve their “table turnovers”. They simply play loud and jarring music in order to make the stay as unpleasant as possible for the customers. And new ones keep pouring in so they are…